Typically when sheets of conventional drywall are installed in a building, they are installed in two horizontal rows. The first row is snugged up against the ceiling and the second row snugged up beneath the first row. It is desirable to have the second lower row snugged up against the first, higher row. Also, it is desirable to have the lower-most edge of the second row of drywall, once installed, approximately three-quarters of an inch above the level of the sub-floor to prevent water damage to the drywall in the event of accidental flooding.
Levers available on the market for this purpose all suffer the drawback that they have to be put into place by hand, that is, they are had-held tools. Consequently, it is an object of the present invention to provide a tool which may be attached to a foot of the user and operated without the use of the operator's hands.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a foot operated lever, attachable to an operator's boot or shoe, which, when the tool is not in use, is rotatable up out of the way so as to be carried in an upright position on the operator's boot or shoe, and which when in a lowered position in use provides a rocker surface as a fulcrum so as to distribute the force of lifting the drywall on soft surfaces such as plywood sub-floors. The present invention also provides a robust hinging mechanism for the foot operated lever which will withstand significant forces, such as when a drywall installer places all his weight on the lever, by vertically transferring the force exerted by the installer through a hinge pin to the arm of the lever while minimizing a bending moment applied to the hinge.
Thus the present invention has advantages over the device of Humbyrd, U.S. Pat. No. 3,268,209 which issued Aug. 23, 1966 for a Roller Lift for Handling Dry-wall Panels. In particular, Humbyrd does not provide a force distributing rocker surface but rather a narrow roller wheel. Further, Humbyrd provides a hinge mechanism which must withstand a significant bending moment applied to the hinge resultant of an installer exerting vertically downwards against the device.